Quick round-up on recent stories ignored for SXSW

I’ll be traveling today, but completely back tomorrow for normal working and blogging. Thanks to everyone for hanging in! It’s funny, but it does seem that when I’m traveling and away from blogging, it’s when a whole bunch of stuff goes down that I could probably comment on but don’t have the time to do so. This is what happened during SXSW that I mainly just got to bullshit about with friends while watching bands set up, but couldn’t blog about:

1) Jason Russell losing his mind and masturbating in public, amongst other things. What’s interesting is right before that all went down, I saw some “Kony 2012” stickers downtown and was told all about the weirdness of the “Invisible Children” film and all the hoopla around it. At this point in my life, when I hear that self-aggrandizing evangelical Christians are making a name for themselves in any field, I fully expect that some kind of sex crime or sex scandal is in the immediate future. Thus, I wasn’t remotely surprised that Russell was running around naked and masturbating in public. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop with Tim Tebow, in fact.

2) Mike Daisey lied to and is called out by “This American Life”. The most troubling thing about this is, in the end, it’s going to make it very difficult for more honest journalists to put a spotlight on ugly labor conditions, especially overseas. There’s already a lot of incentives not to care or to blow off these stories, and believing that it’s probably exaggerated just adds more to the pile. I haven’t listened to Glass call him out on this, but from what I’ve read, it’s incredible. I do think there’s a lot of value in programs like “This American Life” owning these stories. Showing that there’s limits to fact-checking will, ironically, put more value on it. It’s shameful that shows like “This American Life” do all their background work, and then you flip on cable news and there’s yet another right wing pundit lying his head off, and no one bothers to correct him.

3) The continued meltdown of Rush Limbaugh. Saw that he’s hiding behind his role judging some beauty pageant to dismiss claims of misogyny. Since one of his original offenses that’s caused all this was demanding that women turn over sex tapes to him in exchange for him allowing them to use their own insurance to cover contraception, I don’t think there was any confusion from his critics on this front. One can wish to fuck women while hating them. In fact, wishing to fuck women is often a prerequisite for the mind-boggling levels of hate that misogynists like Limbaugh have for women—at the end of the day, straight male misogynists can’t stand that mere women have, legally at least, control over how their own bodies are used when it comes to sex and reproduction. They don’t see women as people, but sperm receptacles, and just are livid that the law might see it any other way.

About the Author

Amanda Marcotte is a freelance journalist born and bred in Texas, but now living in the writer reserve of Brooklyn. She focuses on feminism, national politics, and pop culture, with the order shifting depending on her mood and the state of the nation.